Versilia Golf Club

The course dates from 1990, designed by the Venetian architect Marco Croze, and has been affiliated to the Italian Golf Federation from the start. It has 18 holes, par 71, over 5,873 metres: a modest length that leaves the game in the hands of precision rather than power.

The club describes it as a “lively and varied” parkland course: ancient woods, sand bunkers, water hazards and wide fairways. Its setting is its most recognisable feature, because you play a few hundred metres from the sea with your gaze turned to the mountains, the Apuan Alps that close off the horizon of Versilia.

The club has also worked on the turf recently: the fairways are L93 bentgrass, while the tees have been seeded with Tifway 419, a warm-season grass that, according to the club, withstands wear better. A planting project with native species has renewed the vegetation along the holes.

Tee times are booked through the resort's website, which publishes a seasonal price list with higher prices in July and August and a distinction between weekdays and weekends and holidays only in the winter months. The online price list does not state the year it refers to, so it is best to confirm the rate when booking.

The club rents golf carts, trolleys and clubs, for 18 or for 9 holes. The club does not publish handicap requirements or a weekly closing day.

The course is now part of Versilia Golf Resort, on via della Sipe in Pietrasanta, and on its pages it also appears under the name Forte dei Marmi Golf Club. The clubhouse has changing rooms with showers and an on-site car park of about 250 spaces; the resort includes a restaurant serving Tuscan cuisine, an American Bar, the hotel rooms and spaces for meetings and events.

For practice there is a driving range with 10 covered bays and an automatic ball dispenser. Private lessons are given by Maurizio Villa, who trained with Hank Haney, Tiger Woods's former coach.

• Two names, one course. The course is in the municipality of Pietrasanta, but the resort also presents it as Forte dei Marmi Golf Club.
• Made-to-measure turf. The Tifway 419 tees were chosen for their resistance to wear, the fairways are L93 bentgrass.
• A school with a link to Tiger. The teacher Maurizio Villa studied with Hank Haney, for years Tiger Woods's coach.
• Sea and marble. You play a few hundred metres from the coast, with a view of the Apuan Alps, the mountains of the marble quarries.